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Bebelplatz

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This beautiful public square in the heart of Mitte is home to the stunning buildings of the State Opera house, Humboldt University Law Faculty and St. Hedwigs Cathedral, located along the famous Unter... Read More

This beautiful public square in the heart of Mitte is home to the stunning buildings of the State Opera house, Humboldt University Law Faculty and St. Hedwigs Cathedral, located along the famous Unter Den Linden boulevard. It was also the site of the Nazi Book burnings, which took place in front of what was then the University Library, on the night of May 10, 1933. Under the order of Joseph Goebbels, members of various Nazi groups removed and burned any book written by any author deemed to be 'un-German', a total of around 20,000 books. The site now holds an incredible memorial- understated and quite easy to miss if you weren't looking for it. A glass square in the ground acts a window into a white, underground bookcase, supposedly with enough space to house each one of the books destroyed on that night.

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Historic Sites: "Because of their ability to be both creative and thought provoking, some of the best sites in Berlin are actually monuments or memorials, and the Burning of the Books memorial is no exception."